Most dental handpieces today provide a variety of functions including an air driven drill, air cooling for the drill, water for rinsing the mouth, and air to move debris from the mouth and to purge water from the water outlet. To be able to provide individual control of these functions including using a foot control, a switching control system is required. Many types of switching control systems have been devised in the past. Some switching control systems require switches to be manually turned on and off to activate a particular function on the handpiece. Some systems use air activated diaphragms to control certain functions. Still others require a combination of electrical circuitry with pneumatic lines to activate the respective functions. In present use, most control switching units are filled with a maze of wires and tubing connectors or both that make the switching control systems complex, difficult and expensive to manufacture, and difficult to repair or replace.